


Dreams

by Syberiad



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: Anal Sex, Canon - Book, Community: jsmn-kinkmeme, Dark, Dreams, Dresses (soon), Footnotes, Gunplay, Humor, M/M, Spanking (eventually), Surreal, Work In Progress, book!Drawlight
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-09
Updated: 2015-08-09
Packaged: 2018-04-13 17:41:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4531104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Syberiad/pseuds/Syberiad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Childermass tests out a dream spell and ends up experiencing different fantasies people (namely Lascelles and Drawlight) have about him. WIP.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prelude

**Author's Note:**

> Kink meme fill: http://jsmn-kinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/1273.html?thread=235001#cmt235001

A spell to reveal how others what others thought of you. Doubting that very many people spared him much thought in the first place, Childermass had volunteered to test this enchantment for his master. The magic did not require much in the way of preparation; its _sine qua non_ was that it could only be accomplished during the night of a hunter’s moon[1]. Proper timing and a few other minor details aside, all that was really required of him was to go to sleep — for this was a spell woven from the fabric of dreams[2] …

He found himself alone in what appeared to be a quiet park. Instead of trees, there were many lamps of all shapes and sizes. Despite their glow, it was still rather dark. Looking up, he could just barely discern the shapes of various whales and dolphins in the night sky, slowly flying about their business, as cetaceans are wont to do. His mind caught up in the haze of dream logic, he felt that, all in all, it was a rather ordinary park. Carefree and unconcerned, he walked along the path for a while, enjoying a casual stroll, when a flock of night lights fluttered by his head suddenly, startling him. It wasn’t until he held up his hand to brush away the bothersome things that he, upon beholding the indeterminate number of fingers on said hand, realized where he was. 

Now that he was aware, it was time to get down to business. The path began to twist and turn beneath his boots, leading him to his desired destination: a small building in the very center of the park. It was made of clear, utterly transparent glass (the sort that gives pigeons and pet cats a great deal of trouble sometimes) and looked a bit like a cross between a gazebo and a greenhouse. It had no door and nothing inside it. The whales wouldn’t fly over it, bypassing it in a circle. Directly overhead, he could see the golden face of the moon.

He decided to investigate the thoughts of some of his fellow servants first. Visualizing the face of Lucas in his mind, he pressed his hand against the glass and then stepped right through the wall. Inside, the small space was fully-furnished like a room in Hurtfew Abby. Childermass felt a strange sensation wash over him. Oftentimes when he dreamed, he did so in third person, watching himself through his own eyes. Stepping into the glass house gave him a similar feeling, like he was experiencing his life in both third person and first person simultaneously.

Lucas was waiting for him inside. He smiled when he saw Childermass and offered him a drink, his attitude as friendly and deferent as it was in waking life. Childermass felt/watched himself respond, going through the motions of casual conversation automatically. Lucas’s idea of Childermass was perhaps a bit more respectable compared to how he viewed himself but nothing drastic. The other man’s subconscious perception influenced Childermass’s actions — it felt like being nudged along by a very polite and patient puppeteer — but didn’t fully control him; he knew he had the power to leave whenever he wished and, not noticing anything out-of-the-ordinary in this situation, he did so.

Imagining Davey this time, he re-entered the building. The room remained much the same but the encounter was slightly more interesting. Like Lucas, Davey was friendly and kind, but his image of Childermass was a bit more wild and reckless. It didn’t take long to reveal that Davey often worried whenever Childermass undertook some of the more dangerous jobs for Mr Norrell. Childermass hadn’t been aware that the coachman had such an anxious spirit and made a mental note to avoid giving him all the grizzly details whenever he recounted his magical misadventures to him in the future[3].

Next, he tried to summon the subconscious of Mr Norrell, but the glass house remained empty. Childermass wasn’t surprised; he had only attempted it in the first place because Norrell himself requested he do so as a way of letting him know that the spell was working. The other magician always had numerous precautions in place to protect his own thoughts (although Childermass was so accustomed to Mr Norrell’s habits and mannerisms that he could still often guess what he was thinking simply by looking at the older man’s face). He decided against trying the other magician too. Strange probably didn’t have the same safeguards in place but his sensitivity to magic would make him aware that something was going on, which ran the risk of rendering him lucid. Then he’d have questions. Norrell could deal with _that_ if he wanted when he tried the spell for himself later.

Pondering over other possible candidates for this little experiment, he suddenly remembered the theoretical magician who’d been trying to open a magic school. Ever since he’d first seen the man, he’d suspected that he had a very strong sense for magic and he was curious to see how such a person would react to a dream spell. Visualizing he face of John Segundus, he stepped once more into the glass house.

Instead of the familiar rooms of the previous two men, he now found himself in what he vaguely recalled must be Starecross Hall. Segundus sat by the fireplace, a book in his lap. He didn’t seem to notice Childermass at first, so he cleared his throat to catch his attention. Segundus looked over at him and immediately Childermass’s third-person avatar of himself in the room changed; he saw himself as something enigmatic and threatening, half obscured in explicable shadows. The other man initially gazed upon him in confusion but within moments his eyes widened in recognition. As instantly as they’d appeared, the shadows surrounding him melted away and he beheld an image that seemed as close to his true self as could be attained within a dream. “Childermass? What’s going on? Is this some sort of vision?” The other man stood to approach him but Childermass immediately stepped back, spiriting himself away without a single word. 

Apparently, John Segundus’s magical perception was even stronger than he’d assumed, perhaps even more acute than his own or Jonathan Strange’s. Perhaps spying on other magicians, albeit unofficial magicians, in such a manner was not very wise, but there was still one more magically-inclined individual that piqued his curiosity. Replacing Segundus’s timid, dark-eyed face with a far more worn and ragged one in his mind’s eye, Childermass stepped inside the glass house and found himself in a tent with yellow curtains and… well, whatever other observations one could make of the location were irrelevant, for a far more shocking change soon took precedence.

He was a duck.

_A duck._

A black and white waterfowl with a long red bill and a spiky black crest. A red-breasted merganser, to be exact.

Vinculus greeted him with a wave and a smile like one might any old friend who’d just happened to drop by — offering him tea and biscuits, inquiring as to the health of his family, making idle comments about the weather, and so on.

Childermass responded with a very concerned quack and, unaccustomed to having wings, waddled as fast as he could out of the tent. Although he reverted to his human form instantly upon returning to the dream park, it had still been a very disconcerting experience. He wasn’t entirely sure if Vinculus really saw him that way or if the vagabond had outwitted him with a clever counter spell. Alright then, he’d taken enough risks for the night and made a steadfast decision to focus only on the magically-oblivious for the remainder of the spell.

Not a problem. The individual whom he’d predicted would yield the most amusing results from this excursion was a man utterly void of magical talent. Picturing the man’s smug face, Childermass braced himself as he stepped through the glass wall. Avian shenanigans and whatnot aside, the actual opinions on himself from all the other subjects thus far, while somewhat varied, had not been particularly strong one way or the other. Childermass suspected that such would not be the case with this next gentleman…

* * *

  1. ▲Mr Norrell had a book on the matter which stressed this point most clearly: it had to be a hunter’s moon, _not_ a harvest moon. Apparently, performing the same spell under a harvest moon revealed what others thought about ducks instead. Charming as the birds could be, Childermass somehow doubted that the average person devoted very much time to thinking about them; it seemed an uncommon topic, more so than even himself, but the author of the book — an anonymous magician from the late 15 century — insisted that, in fact, people thought a great deal more about ducks than one might assume. Adamant in this belief, the author spent an entire chapter outlining his Theory of Subconscious Duck Contemplation. He then hypothesized further that attempting the spell during a gibbous moon would reveal what people really thought about geese but, sadly, he never seemed to have had a chance to test this idea out for himself.
  2. ▲Dream fabric is a lovely shade of turquoise, by the way, but it is not used often in clothing as it is very impractical. No matter how much it is stitched and buckled and fasted, it always manages to slip away and fold itself into the form of an elegant bird — a shape reminiscent to that of an origami paper crane — before flying back to whence it came. A thaumaturgical tailor from a land beyond the Caspian Sea is rumored to have mastered this fabric, but if he truly existed, he never revealed his secrets.
  3. ▲There was an incident several years ago involving giant troubadour spiders made entirely of knives (wielding accordions which also were made entirely of knives) in particular still had Davey quite distressed.




	2. Lascelles

So fervid was the subconscious animosity radiating throughout the next room that it clung to the air itself like volcanic ash, stifling and hot, making Childermass feel for a moment as though he’d stepped into a Turkish bath, although it was nothing of the sort. Through the thick haze, he could make out a lavishly decorated sitting room. He hadn’t paid very close attention to the previous four areas, but this time he made sure to survey his surroundings carefully. Here, he began to notice several unsettling little details, indicators that these places were not perfect representations of reality; rather, they were realms of the mind, where no amount of elegant décor could hide the true savageness of one’s nature.

Were the legs of that end table made of human bones? Was that blood seeping out from under the carpet? Were those eyes growing out of the flower vase by the bookshelf? He couldn’t say for sure, as it was difficult to focus on any one object, and this uncertainty made it all the more unnerving. Everything appeared askew somehow, as though constructed on the basis of a thoroughly non-Euclidean geometry, beyond the reaches of human comprehension. Catching a glimpse of some abnormality from the corner of his eye, he would turn to look only to find nothing out of the ordinary: the table was entirely wooden, the floor was immaculate, and the vase held striped tulips. It was fascinating but he didn’t have time to puzzle over it for long.

“How long do you intend to stand there like a stuffed mallard?” said a voice from behind him. Childermass was not a man easily startled but he almost jumped from surprise. Managing to retain his composure, he folded his hands behind his back and stood still. Lascelles walked around and addressed him face-to-face, continuing his diatribe: “Now there’s an idea! Perhaps you’d make a better trophy than you do a servant? Oh, yes, such a role would suit you well, I’m sure of it. Why, then I could start my very own cabinet of curiosities with you as the centerpiece. Do you think it’s too late to pick up taxidermy as a hobby? I’ve always held the opinion that it is a true gentleman’s pastime and, besides… leaving someone else to take care of all the eviscerating and whatnot just doesn’t sound like much _fun_.”

While Lascelles had been rambling, Childermass slipped into the same hybrid perspective as before and beheld the other man’s idea of himself from the third person. He wasn’t sure what to make of what he saw. His clothing looked more worn and dirty (while in waking life he kept his attire neat despite his disinterest in fashion), indicating that Lascelles saw him as a filthy commoner — no shock there — but at the same time, he also looked a bit… taller? Stronger somehow, more imposing. A threat. Upon further consideration, none of that surprised him much either, but… there was still something else… some contradictory sentiment buried within this man’s wretched subconsciousness — another facet to Lascelles’s obsession, jealousy, and hostility that Childermass could not quite place. He had to admit, it made him curious. He decided to stay in this dream a while longer and see if he could uncover it.

“You certainly could use a few hobbies, we can agree on that,” he replied coolly. “But I’m sure there’s something more worthy to be your centerpiece, sir. Mummified servants are a fairly old-fashioned trend. If you want to keep up with the current fashions, might I suggest a stuffed alligator? There’s an old saying that a wizard’s study isn’t complete without an apothecary alligator hanging from the ceiling and, what with the recent revival of English magic and all, they’ll be making a big comeback this year. Or so Mr Drawlight has informed me, at least.”

“Don’t speak to me of that whore!” Lascelles snapped. The whole room seemed to sway momentarily from the sudden flare of anger. “But, yes, it is true, even as a corpse you’d be unworthy. What are you good for, I do wonder…”

Lascelles's outburst at his presumed friend's name was strange. From what Childermass had read, the spell isolated the parts of a subconscious encompassing the relationship between subject and caster exclusively. If the mere mention of a third party incited such a strong emotional reaction — one powerful enough to temporarily distort the mind chamber itself — then it could only mean that the other person had a strong tie to _both_ people. Childermass made a mental note to investigate Drawlight's dream afterward.

Meanwhile, Lascelles crossed his arms and regarded him expectantly, as though awaiting some specific reply. Childermass suddenly felt like an actor who'd missed his cue. His usual snarky comebacks felt incongruous with the situation… perhaps because he was going about this all wrong! Instead of trying to guess what Lascelles wanted him to say, he ought to let the man himself inform him.

Shifting his consciousness almost entirely into the third-person perspective, Childermass handed over the strings, allowing the other man's dream to control his avatar.

As it turned out, Lascelles hadn't wanted him to say anything.

To his horror, Childermass witnessed himself grab the loathsome dandy and pull him into a deep, ravenous kiss.

He had always thought himself rather good at reading people but apparently he'd greatly overestimated his abilities because this was one outcome he had not even considered as a possibility…

Standing still and silent, Lascelles seemed to almost accept the embrace passively at first — a sense of hesitation hung in the air, the slightest pause — and then he sprang into action, shoving Childermass roughly against the nearby wall. Fortunately, Childermass's utter bewilderment didn't impede his dream avatar, which countered by seizing Lascelles by the wrists and flipping their positions. Unfazed and unyielding, Lascelles managed to wring one hand free and lunged with it at his opponent's throat. To and fro, they proceeded to flail and twist and grind, around and against each other, as though engaged in some bizarre dance. It seemed as though Lascelles's inability to decide if he wished to dominate or to submit had locked his little fantasy in stalemate. Childermass would have found it quite comical if he weren't also so horribly embarrassed.

It was tempting to leave.

Then again, it was also about equally tempting to stay…

The dream's indecisiveness must have been rubbing off on him, but it wasn't nearly as contagious as some of its other qualities: fever, lust, delirium. Try as he might to keep himself detached, he couldn't escape its influence entirely and, slowly but surely, it had begun to seep into his soul.

It made him… curious. Yes, that was all. There was simply something more to this nonsense that he wasn't seeing and he hated to leave a mystery unsolved. Perhaps… he could help move things along, coax the dream into revealing more about its dreamer and his intentions?

Shifting the majority of his consciousness back into the first-person perspective, he relinquished his hold on Lascelles's elbow and lowered his head in surrender. Since he still didn't quite understand what the other man wanted, he figured it'd be better to let him take the lead, at least for now. Only the hint of something darker — still lurking just out of range in the corner of his eye — reminded him not to let his guard down completely.

Triumphant, Lascelles planted his hands on his shoulders, pushing Childermass down to his knees before him.

Childermass's misgivings over this position were waylaid somewhat by how dusty the floor was. Not that something like that would normally bother or distract him at all, but… hadn't it been utterly spotless earlier? Taking a quick glance around, he found that the rest of the room had also lost some of its grandeur: the fabric on the sofa looked threadbare around the edges, the wallpaper had yellowed and begun peeling over in the corners, the vases contained only the dried remains of plant life, and so on.

These environmental discrepancies intrigued him greatly, but now was still not the best time to contemplate them. Lascelles, demanding as ever, was already shoving something into his face.

It was his pistol.

Lovely, why would he have expected anything different?

"Are you so insecure in your own equipment that you must bring those little toys of yours into everything?" Childermass taunted, fixing Lascelles with the classic "are you serious?" look.

He had more to say but Lascelles countered that a filthy drudge was unworthy to even contemplate a gentleman's equipment, let alone be permitted to touch it and, uninterested in further discussion, he forced the long thin barrel of the pistol between other man's lips.

"Well then, what are you waiting for? Put that insolent mouth of yours to work," he said and, as an afterthought, added: "Have I mentioned before that I always keep my pistols loaded?"

He fidgeted, tracing the trigger with his finger. Childermass noted the slight tremble to his hand and the frayed, darkened fabric at the bottom of his sleeve. The crisp white material had turned yellow and brown along the cuff. He thought it stained at first but a moment later realized it was singed. He was certain it had not been that way moments ago. Something was off about this man, much like something was off about this room. Lascelles's claim went undisputed.

To die in the mind sphere bore little consequence — relatively speaking. There were three potential outcomes: (1) rewinding to some point prior to one's untimely demise, (2) instantaneous ejection back into the dream forest, or (3) dissolution of the entire spell due to the caster's awakening. Since the spell could only be cast once by the same person within the same night, the ever-present chance of the third outcome meant that dying still ranked high on the dream world's undesirable experiences list[1].

Childermass reassured himself that the threat of this great inconvenience was the only reason he was now trailing teasing little licks and kisses along the length of a gun barrel. His manner was… hesitant. The haze in the room seemed thicker, warmer — it made it difficult to concentrate, blurring his senses. He didn't understand what pleasure the other man could derive from his actions and felt rather foolish… Perhaps that was it.

As if on cue, Lascelles laughed and asked if it was his first time. Despite his criticism, he had begun palming his crotch with his free hand and the telling bulge of arousal was already visible. He laughed again when Childermass tried to shake his head with the gun still in his mouth, and his voice sounded rough and hoarse. The inexplicable fire damage had spread up his sleeve to the rest of his clothing. His skin was specked with ash and Childermass could see thin wisps of smoke streaming from his body. Perhaps it was the man's depravity made manifest, creeping out from the shadows in the darkest corners of his mind. If such were the case, Childermass couldn't help but wonder what form his own private fantasies would take — then the skin on Lascelles's right hand split open, a dark fluid bubbling in the opening — and he decided he would rather not know.

Oblivious or unconcerned with the changes coming over him, Lascelles leaned over and grabbed him by the hair, pulling back his head. The gun moved deeper into his mouth, metal digging into soft flesh. In a harsh, dry whisper, he commanded the kneeling man to suck the barrel. Face flushed, Childermass obeyed as best he could, gasping around the weapon as Lascelles continued to pump it in and out of his mouth. He gagged when it hit the back of his throat but the Lascelles did not let up his pace. Breathing deeply, he forced himself to relax — the intoxicating affects of the fog made the task less daunting — and bit by bit, he was able to deep throat the length of the barrel.

Releasing the grip on his hair, Lascelles slid his left hand down to Childermass's neck, staring intently into the other man's eyes while he brushed his thumb down along his throat — the touch ominous in its softness.

Childermass cried out — a weak, strained sound — around the gun as Lascelles's left hand tightened, but he dared not struggle too much, lest Lascelles clench his other hand around the trigger instead.

Lascelles's eyes dilated into hollow darkness. His fine clothes seemed to wither and darken with blood; they were little more than tattered rags now, clinging loosely to his body. The trembling in his bare arms was more conspicuous, punctuated by irregular jolts and shivers.

Everything seemed to be changing within the blink an eye — Lascelles, the room, even the gun no longer tasted like metal in Childermass's mouth. He couldn't place the new flavor or texture but whatever it was it made him sick to his stomach. Lascelles, however, smiled upon it — which was not encouraging in the slightest — and began to pull it, slowly, from Childermass's throat.

He coughed and gasped for air. The momentary relief turned to horror as he beheld the gun in its nightmarish state: it was made entirely of bones. The morbid vision did not end there; as Lascelles held it up, it began to fuse to the man's hand, growing over it like a grotesque carapaced gauntlet.

None of this garnered much reaction from Lascelles; his expression remained indifferent, bored almost. Turning both his attention and his weapon back to Childermass, he pushed the other man down on his back with his other hand before climbing over to straddle his hips. His shredded clothing left his arousal on display in plain sight. In a low, unsteady voice, as though remembering how to speak, he ordered Childermass to likewise expose himself. Childermass obeyed, fumbling with his buttons, worried that the strange atmosphere would somehow impede his dexterity, but thankfully this was one of those dreams that glossed over some of the details and he quickly freed his erection.

Meanwhile, there were sounds coming from all sides around them. Striped tulips like those ones on the bookshelf sprouted from the carpet. For a moment, they looked like otherwise normal flowers, but then the petals withered away, revealing eyes growing from the stems. The dark haze covering the room had thickened, but Childermass was glad for it because he did not wish to behold the changes to the rest of the room, which were ghoulish and death-ridden.

Lascelles shifted his hips, grinding his erection against Childermass's own. With his normal hand clawed around Childermass's throat and the skeleton gun abomination pointed at his head, he frotted against him, breathing heavy and ragged, movements erratic and desperate. Childermass jerked his hips up in return but his motions lacked the same energy. Unease subdued his enthusiasm, overshadowed his arousal.

Childermass had little doubt at this point that he'd made the wrong decision. It seemed inevitable that, with the gun now part of his body, Lascelles would shoot him the instant he reached orgasm. He was certain that he would "die" any moment now and could only hope it didn't wake him up because he really did not want to explain why the spell had ended so soon to Mr Norrell.

Alas, there was nothing he could do. He might know how to handle himself better in a fight than Lascelles, but Lascelles had a gun and the two of them were roughly the same height and built; he would need a far more significant advantage to quickly overpower and subdue- _Oh_.

At last, it dawned him.

He did have a significant advantage, granted to him by Lascelles's own mind.

Channeling all of the extra dream strength within himself, he retaliated. Moving faster than was humanly possible, he grabbed both of Lascelles's wrists and rolled over, switching their positions so that Lascelles was pinned beneath him. At some point during their little turnabout, Lascelles had fired the pistol, but his timing was just a moment too late and it fired harmlessly into the wall. Glancing at the bullet hole, Childermass cringed. Apparently it shot teeth.

He squeezed the hand fused with the gun and its repulsive little connective tendrils seemed to shatter instantly. A split second later, both weapon and limb returned to normal. Lascelles squirmed beneath him. Mistaking it for struggle, Childermass moved to rise and release him, but Lascelles grabbed him by the shoulders, pulling him back down to whisper directly in his ear, voice thick with arousal: "I want you inside of me."

The black smoke permeating the room had faded and, while his arousal was still almost painfully nagging and evident, he felt much better able to ignore it in lieu of the various other emotions this man evoked within him, the most prevalent being: intense and powerful disgust.

"Mmm, no, I think not. How would you have put it…? Ah, how about 'it would be beneath my dignity to permit someone so unworthy near my equipment'? That sounds about right." Picking up the discarded pistol, he stood and examined it, making sure it was empty. Lascelles remained on the floor, staring up at him blankly, too desperate and aroused to properly respond to such insults. "Here, fuck yourself with this instead." Childermass dropped the gun back on the ground.

He'd meant it as a half-joke and was a bit surprised when Lascelles scrambled for it immediately and obeyed his command without hesitation (or any preparation for that matter but likely that was another detail the dream glossed over). His whole body quivered with lust as he fucked himself, fast and hard, with the long thin barrel, keeping his legs spread open wide, back arched up off the ground as though to make sure the other man had the best possible view.

Ugh, it was a damn nice view. Simultaneously repulsive and enticing. Ashamed at how turned on he'd allowed himself to become, Childermass took himself in hand, trying to deal with his arousal as fast as possible. Lascelles's lewd cries and gasps and moans made it an easy task. Between the vulgar noises, he'd mutter a string of incomprehensible curses — "I hate you so much…" and "you ruin everything, even he is on your side now…" were the only ones Childermass could discern, although he wasn't entirely sure who this "he" was — Norrell, presumably? He didn't give it much thought just then, preoccupied as he was.

Soon, he felt himself grow weak in the knees and leaned back against the wall. Eyes squeezed shut, he came to the sound of Lascelles's voice. Lascelles, however, did not.

Childermass cleaned himself up in a hurry and, casing another thoroughly disgusted look at the debauched and horrible man still desperately fucking himself on his own pistol on the ground before him, he turned and left the dream, Lascelles's wanton moans still echoing in the back of his mind.

* * *

  1. ▲Undesirable though it may be, "dying" was not at the top of this list. That honor was held by "looking at oneself if a mirror", although "questioning the existence of watermelon" was a very close second.  
  
Third was something about either "cello metamorphosis" or, perhaps, "swimming pools". The text had been rendered indecipherable due to some spilled tea and smudged ink on the page. Fortunately, this was the only line affected so there were no other enigmatic entries.  
  
Fourth was a two-by-two centimeter drawing depicting nine crowned birds in a tree singing war ballads, which as we all know means "reading [magazines](http://i.imgur.com/PiUT0uW.png)".  
  
Fifth was "playing badminton", which no one should be doing anyway because it would be an anachronism.  
  
Sixth was playing "playing badminton with a lobster". The presence of the lobster allegedly made the experience somewhat less undesirable, though nowhere near as much as the presence of exactly three-and-a-half marine chronometers, which would bump it right over to the desirable dream experiences list instead (unfortunately, they would not make it any less anachronistic).  
  
Finally, "dying" had made it to seventh place, which was still fairly impressive, as it was a very long list and written by someone with small enough handwriting to rival Mr Norrell's.




	3. Interlude

Back in the dream forest, Childermass felt… unclean. And disorientated.

He himself was a man who rarely remembered his dreams; he hadn’t since he was a child, in fact. A distant memory began to creep up on him. Long, long ago, his dreams had been both frequent and vivid. Even at that young age, not yet aware of their magical potential, these sublime visions fascinated him and he imagined them as glimpses into other worlds. Then his mother died, and he saw dreams for what they really were: obnoxious little lies that the human mind tells at night in order to torment itself. The cheerful, ersatz faces of the dead began to haunt his sleep. Each night without fail, they would trick him into be believing a false and impossible reality. Waking from such dreams was one of the worst feelings in the world. He dreaded these deceptively pleasant little fantasies more than the most ghastly and horrid of nightmares. He realized, in retrospect, that the strength of this dread, coupled with his latent affinity for magic, had spawned a spell: a ward against dreams that he’d cast on himself unconsciously.

Since his personal experiences with dreams had all but ceased when he was still quite young, his perception of them had remained relatively innocent. Perhaps this was why he’d been so… taken aback by the devious turns a fantasy could take? Or maybe the spell to reveal the dreams of others had canceled out his own ward, leaving him vulnerable to the mind’s delusions for the first time in decades? It seemed plausible but maybe he was simply coming up with excuses in order to hide how mortifying the experience had been!

He needed a moment. Rather than proceed immediately to the next dream, he took some time to take a short walk around the perimeter of the gazebo. The crisp air helped clear away the last remnants of Lascelles’s subconsciousness, which clung to him like leeches — very persistent leeches that were trying to sell him something. They still left behind an aftertaste of sorts in his mind and it would probably be a while before he’d be able to shrug that off as well. It made his skin crawl if he thought about it but at least he could ignore it now.

Childermass let is thoughts drift. As before, wandering around this zone of liminal insubstantiality soon lulled him into an inexplicable peacefulness. This false sense of security — is this what he’d been avoiding all these years? It was so easy to push the concern aside and allow himself to indulge… His ward really must have been broken then, and he yet he couldn’t bring himself to care… He watched a pair of floating chandeliers chase around a strange segmented creature with five eyes and a long proboscis[1] as though they were merely children playing tag in the park.

Feeling a bit better, he considered his next candidate. Perhaps a lady’s fantasies would be less disturbing? On second thought, if the things he’d overheard the maids whispering about a couple times were any indicator, they might be twice as worse. Still, now that he’d thought of it, there was one lady in particular whose dreams might prove interesting — might shed some light on a few questions he had regarding his master’s magical methods. 

Conjuring up the face of Lady Pole in his mind’s eye, he pressed his hand against the glass gazebo and-

And nothing.

The glass structure had not changed one bit. The dream forest was still visible through it’s opaque walls. How very, very odd. What could it mean? Was no one home? Ah, nonsense, the young lady must simply still be awake. Nothing peculiar about that at all. A shame, but it did seem like it would’ve been far too easy.

He went back outside and, feeling more in the spirit of things despite the minor setback, quickly selected his next test subject. He imagined a pair of dark, beautiful eyes — they belonged, of course, to none other than a certain Mr Christopher Drawlight.

* * *

  1. ▲So bizarre was this creature’s form that he assumed it a being of pure fantasy. However, had he been born some hundred years later, he might have recognized it as an unusually large _[Opabinia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opabinia)_. This strange asymmetrical arthropod, like so many other of its fellow Cambrian fauna, had roamed the dream space for eons, and it would likely continue to do so until the end of time, forever oblivious to its own extinction in the realm of the waking. Childermass, meanwhile, noted that this creature was quite friendly, much unlike the spiny one he met a bit later (a _[Hallucigenia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucigenia)_ — he almost walked into one on his way back to the gazebo and it started hissing at him — thankfully it moved far too sluggishly to give chase).




	4. Isometry

Drawlight's dream chamber was by far the most elaborate and striking location yet. For one, it was enormous — seemingly endless, in fact! — a veritable labyrinth of fabric and furniture. It also couldn't seem to make up its mind about anything. While Lascelles's room had fought to contain its transformation, Drawlight's flowed freely from one extravagant design to the next. One moment the curtains were blue, then periwinkle, then a slightly different shade of blue, and so on. While in life such inconsistency might have easily given one a headache, the special environment of the dream followed the current of Drawlight's thoughts in such a way that these constant alterations seemed as natural as breathing.

The only design element that remained, for the most part, consistent was the abundance of French windows, which lined the walls and provided a great view of the outside — and what a view it was! It seemed to include every architectural marvel Drawlight had ever laid eyes upon in books. Saint Basil's Cathedral to the east, the Taj Mahal to the north, and… Childermass wasn't entirely sure what that otherworldly thing to the south was supposed to be — some sort of abstract structure that called to mind the central panel from Hieronymus Bosch's _[Garden of Earthly Delights](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Garden_of_Earthly_Delights)_. (Which in turn made him think that his previous escapade with Lascelles was more like the right panel of the aforementioned painting. Perhaps he was working his way up to Eden!)

The peculiarities of Drawlight's dream did not end in its setting. It also came with its own inhabitants. Countless fashionable ladies and gentlemen were crowded into every nook and cranny. From a distance, none of these people appeared to have faces, resembling lifeless clothing mannequins, but whenever Childermass approached one and came within two feet, a distinctive face suddenly appeared, summoned out from the depths of Drawlight's rather impressive memory. Despite their spontaneous physiognomy, these people were incapable of speech and thus Childermass deemed them to be purely decorative.

Speaking of things that were purely decorative, Childermass's avatar within this realm had many frivolous flourishes to it as well. He was wearing the most ridiculous pointy hat with a star ornament hanging off the tip, his long black hair was even longer and tied back with a silver ribbon, in his hand he held an elegantly carved wand, but the most silly thing of all was on his back: he had a pair of enormous black raven wings. Apparently, this was Drawlight's idea of how a proper magician ought to look. Childermass imagined he looked rather foolish in this getup but… well, on the bright side, at least he wasn't a duck.

Now then, where could this fantasy's creator be hiding?

Traversing this particular dream proved to be a challenge in and of itself. Childermass almost wished he had a compass, although he doubted cardinal directions would’ve been much help as there were four suns hanging in the sky outside, each one moving at a different speed and along a contradictory analemma. 

And so, as he walked and walked through this maze of conjoined crowded parlors, he slowly began to realize three important things:

One: that no matter how much or how fast he walked, he never really went anywhere. His motion range seemed confined within a fixed space of about twenty square meters. Otherwise, it was the "room" itself that moved, continuously shifting and flowing beneath his steps like an endless river. If he stood still in the very center of the restricted zone, the movement was very slow, like the sun — the real sun, not those obnoxious whirligigs outside — approaching its zenith. If he ran or approached a boundary, his surroundings zoomed by so quickly they blurred together. 

Two: that the slope and perspective changed dramatically depending on the direction he was looking. If he looked in the direction that he arbitrarily decided to call "north", the slope curved upwards and twisted and converged until it became a single vertical line, stretching to infinity. If he looked to the "south", the room became a flat endless plain — not just the floor but everything upon it; the entire view appeared more and more skewed until, in the farthest reaches, it became entirely two-dimensional[1]. To the "west" and "east" everything looked much the same, except he could perceive the slightest curve. Based on this information, he determined that the dream's setting took on a sort of cone shape, which rotated and spiraled and flowed forth eternally in the same direction — from the vertical line to the horizontal plain[2].

Three: that the people populating this dream were not, as he'd initially assumed, purely decorative. All around him he could hear the indistinct murmur of conversation, meaning they spoke whenever he wasn't looking directly at them. He could not make out any distinct words — as was sometimes the case in dreams — but there was a hint of something beneath the chatter… some sort of music? He tried to focus and figure out where it was coming from but whenever he thought he had an idea, a voice from somewhere behind him would suddenly laugh or break into a coughing fit or even shriek, throwing him off track completely. Likewise, whenever he thought he saw someone who looked like Drawlight in the distance, a group of people would pass in front of him and, by the time he managed to work his way around them, whatever he'd seen was gone. Thus, it seemed that the people were not mere decorations but rather shields; Drawlight was hiding his own true self beneath the gossip and concerns of others.

With these three observations, Childermass was able to reach a most-worrisome conclusion: that the spell had not worked correctly.

The spell, as one might recall, was supposed to isolate the parts of a subconscious encompassing the relationship between subject and caster exclusively. Instead, Childermass now found himself in the outer reaches of Drawlight's surprisingly well-guarded dreamscape. What could have gone wrong? A number of explanations presented themselves to him, the most prominent being that the experience with Lascelles had shaken him even more than he'd realized and weakened the spell, but he couldn't be certain. The only thing that seemed obvious at this point was that Drawlight's natural defenses against this sort of thing were much stronger than his persona had let on.

No matter, he could ponder over the cause later; for now, he needed a solution. Now then, all he needed to do was find some sort of key or connection… Didn't Lascelles react strongly to Drawlight's name earlier? Was there something from that previous dream he could use? He (very reluctantly) replayed it in his head: smoke, bones, blood, vase, flowers, pistol, bullet, vines, tulips, stems, eyes—

Wait. _Tulips_.

Striped tulips… The language of flowers… Beautiful eyes!

He had it.

He closed his own eyes and visualized the flowers he'd seen earlier, their petals withering, dark eyes growing from the stems… The murmur of the crowd around him faded away and he could hear the music more clearly until… it had to be right in front of him now… He opened his eyes and found himself in an open, empty space with a single music box on the floor. It had just finished the last few notes of its song. He picked it up and turned the key, which was shaped like a tulip at the end. He opened the lid. A bright light flooded the room, momentarily blinding him.

When his vision returned, the box was gone — and so was the crowd — so was the entire infinitely flowing landscape. Instead, he found himself in a small simple bedroom with moonlight streaming in through a single non-French window. Drawlight was here, at last. He wasn't wearing any clothes, save for his stockings, and many scrapes and bruises were visible upon his thin, frail body — but Childermass didn't really notice this yet because there was something — or rather, someone — far more distressing to behold in this room.

He should have been expecting it at this rate but it still infuriated him: what in the damned hell was Lascelles doing in this dream!

* * *

  1. ▲Or, well no, perhaps two-dimensional wasn't quite the right word. It reminded Childermass of another famous painting: _[The Ambassadors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ambassadors_\(Holbein\))_ by Hans Holbein the Younger. The painting featured a strange distorted shape at the bottom. Viewing it through a cylindrical mirror revealed the shape to be a skull. Anamorphosis! Ah yes, that seemed a more fitting term. Revised statement: the view to the "south" became anamorphic in the distance.
  2. ▲To be exact, it was in the form of a tractricoid (a.k.a. pseudosphere) — [the preferred shape](http://virtualmathmuseum.org/Surface/gallery_o.html) of magic and dreams and all manner of unreality: an infinite world (for the potential of dreams and magic was limitless) within a finite universe (for the human mind could only handle so much at once) — an elegant inversion of the waking realm, which consisted of a finite world within an infinite, ever-expanding universe. This information was first calculated by the late 17th century mathemagician, Hugo Christenson, who described his methods in his book, _Non-Euclidean Oneiromancy_ — a book so dull, even Mr Norrell had difficulty reading it without dozing off.




	5. Drawlight

As usual, Lascelles was up to no good. He had both hands wrapped around Drawlight's throat. With tears trickling from his pretty eyes, the smaller man clung to Lascelles's wrists and stood on tip-toe, struggling weakly against the vicious grip.

Meanwhile, the shock of seeing Lascelles again had jolted Childermass almost entirely into the third-person perspective. The dream didn't waste any time. Before he'd had the chance to process what was happening, it took control of his avatar and propelled him toward the other two men.

What followed was a most exceptionally ridiculous scene:

To his immense embarrassment, Childermass witnessed himself dramatically flourish that silly little wand and utter some nonsense "magic" words in pseudo-Latin. A bolt of blue lightning immediately burst from the tip of the wand and struck Lascelles square in the face. There was a loud pop, an explosion of confetti, and the next thing he knew… Lascelles had turned into a cat.

"Oh!" Drawlight gasped in surprise but he didn't miss a beat either. Before Meowcelles could react, Drawlight lifted the scoundrel-turned-feline and, without hesitation, promptly defenestrated him.

As he firmly slammed the window shut, it instantly transformed into an elegant French window, setting off a chain reaction. A gold paisley pattern etched itself into the wall, spreading all around the room, similarly transforming the rest of the décor from drab to delightful.

Drawlight turned and ran over to Childermass with open arms. "My hero!" he cried, embracing the taller man.

Childermass slowly shifted back into first-person, regaining control of his body, although he still feeling utterly bewildered by this entire situation. Awkward and uncertain, he leaned down a bit, returning the hug, when suddenly Drawlight pulled back, looking up at him with an almost shy expression before giving Childermass a gentle little kiss on the cheek.

Unsure of what to make of this surprisingly chaste show of affection, Childermass stroked his hands down the sides of Drawlight's slender frame, tracing the outline of bony shoulders, ribs, and hips. In this exposed state, Drawlight's body felt even more fragile and small than it looked.

His skin felt very soft too, pleasant to the touch. The scrapes Childermass had seen earlier were already fading. Within moments, they had almost entirely vanished — all save for a cruel ring of bruises encircling Drawlight's neck, which remained as dark and prominent as ever[1]. Childermass frowned, oddly disquieted, as though sensing something malapropos to the environment. He couldn't put his finger on it exactly, but something about these bruises seemed too real. Absurd though it may be, he wondered how much of the dream so far had been pure fantasy.

Contemplating such matters now would get him nowhere, however, for in the language of dreams "fact" and "fiction" were the exact same word[2]. Indeed, this realm had a way of muddling up even the simplest ideas. A jarring juxtaposition of the frivolous with the severe permeated the atmosphere, simultaneously too subtle and too obvious. What a mess of contradictions! Even Childermass himself felt conflicted and he wasn't entirely sure he could blame it all on the dream this time[3].

It had dawned on him that, truth-be-told, holding Drawlight like this felt… rather nice. But no, no…

On one hand, he felt guilty — Drawlight was far too young for his tastes, over ten years his junior!

On the other hand, he was… intrigued…

Gazing up at him through those long dark lashes, still glistening with tears, Drawlight projected a demeanor that could almost be described as innocent. With a shiver, he pressed himself closer and hid his face against Childermass's shoulder. "I'm cold…" His voice was muffled but not enough to hide the suggestive tone. Although his vulnerability still seemed genuine, it had taken on a playful edge. When he glanced back up at Childermass again, his tears had dried and a glint of mischief had taken their place in his eyes. "It's too cold in here, Mr Childermass..." he repeated more earnestly, coming across as just a bit too comically desperate this time.

Childermass laughed. "Perhaps you should put on some clothes then. That's what you love most, isn't it?"

Drawlight's coy smile faltered and he blushed a deep red[4]. Though he was not a man easily shamed in the waking world, he did not appreciate being laughed at in his own private fantasy (to be fair: no one would be). "Perhaps I…" He paused. An idea seemed to come to him mid-sentence. "Perhaps I'll have you choose my outfit this time!"

Childermass almost groaned at the proposition. That didn't sound like much fun at all! Apparently, Drawlight thought people had nothing better to do than to imagine dressing him up in different clothes! "I'm sure a fashionable gentleman such as yourself would find my tastes far too sombre, Mr Drawlight…" 

His protest came too late, however, as the dream had already begun to change to reflect Drawlight's latest train of thought. First, the room needed better lighting and more inspiring decoration! The walls grew three extra French windows, as well as a painting of Madame Clicquot Ponsardin[5]. Then an elaborate rug stretched across the floor, while vases and mirrors and sculptures were summoned into being in every available corner. Last, came the more functional items. An enormous armoire sprouted out of the floor like a mushroom and the bed off to the side transformed into a chaise longue, upon which Drawlight promptly threw himself.

"Go ahead!" he said as he made himself comfortable amongst the many embroidered pillows. "Pick anything you like~"

With a sigh, Childermass approached the wardrobe and examined its contents. It was crammed utterly full, seeming to contain every article of clothing depicted in the fashion plates of every single magazine Drawlight had read that year!

"Ah… I'm not even sure where to start," Childermass admitted.

"Anything is fine. I won't complain!" Childermass gave Drawlight such a doubtful look at this claim that he added emphatically: "I promise!"

Hardly reassured, Childermass turned back to the wardrobe and, after a moment's consideration, pulled out a waistcoat he thought looked tolerable.

As expected, Drawlight broke his promise almost instantly. Well, alright, he didn't complain, not _exactly_ , but his sigh and the look on his face spoke volumes. 

Knowing how to take a hint, Childermass quickly put the waistcoat back and tried again, pulling out a shirt that seemed decent enough. 

"Really?" Drawlight said, raising his eyebrows. " _That_ shirt?"

And so it continued. Drawlight never _directly_ turned down anything Childermass chose but his sighs and expressions and "offhand comments" made his displeasure quite clear. Having dealt with Mr Norrell for so long, Childermass was no stranger to gratuitous nitpicking but Drawlight took it to a whole new level and was seriously beginning to try his patience.

He was almost ready to quit this pointless task when another waistcoat caught his eye. It was… er… blue? He knew nothing of fashion lingo either but it seemed exceptionally fancy, so maybe Drawlight would like it. He pulled it out and braced for it… Ah, no complaints! Next he chose a pair of breeches which likewise produced no criticism. Amazing, he was on a roll now! Hoping this silly game would soon come to end, he next pulled out a nice blue jacket to match the waistcoat and— 

Drawlight sighed _deeply_.

"What's wrong now!" Childermass finally snapped, resisting the urge to throw the clothes he was holding at Drawlight.

"The jacket clashes with the waistcoat."

"It's blue!"

"The wrong shade of blue!"

"They're the exact same shade of blue."

"No, no, they're quite different, that one is almost more green really."

They bickered like this about the color for entirely too long. The argument only ended when Childermass proposed that Drawlight probably needed to wear spectacles like Mr Norrell — a suggestion which horrified Drawlight so much, he was rendered speechless. 

Exasperated, Childermass had half a mind to leave this ridiculous dream when something else caught his eye in the wardrobe: it was… some sort of dress? Or more like half of a dress, it was so revealing! As soon as he saw it, Childermass began to imagine Drawlight wearing the indecent little thing and he felt himself blush, the embarrassment overriding his frustration. He grabbed the dress and, trying to pass it off as a joke ~~while secretly thinking otherwise~~ , waved it at Drawlight. "What about this?"

To his complete ~~delight~~ surprise, instead of giving him another look of disgust, Drawlight giggled and clapped his hands together in approval. "Oh! Excellent choice, Mr Childermass! I adore it!" he said as he skipped over. He took the dress and walked to the opposite end of the room, where a dressing screen had spontaneously materialized.

While Drawlight adorned himself with the skimpy garment, Childermass continued to stand awkwardly in the middle of the room, struggling (and, needless to say, failing) to convince himself that he was not at all interested in this latest turn of events.

* * *

  1. ▲In addition to the bruises, Childermass noticed one other unexpected trait in Drawlight's dream self: his eyebrows. Had there always been that slight upward flourish to them? Childermass quickly dismissed this oddity as some sort of silly fashion thing, but he was mistaken. Dreams had a way of accentuating fairy characteristics, making them stand out even on humans with the most distant fairy ancestry.
  2. ▲Alas, a transliteration of this word could not be provided, as oneirolinguists have not yet managed to figure out how it ought to be spelled or even pronounced. Circumlocution attempts vary wildly and, in all likelihood, it is simply not a word meant to be spoken or written or expressed by any means — well, at least not by any traditional means. Amid all the commotion, there is one peculiar consistency in its interpretation: all individuals with synesthesia seem to agree that the word is a sort of blueish-purple color, like a bouquet of bittersweet nightshade and starflowers.
  3. ▲While Lascelles's dream had been aggressive and forceful and nightmarish, Drawlight's was (for the most part) simply confusing in the way all dreams were. The excitement at the beginning aside, it felt more passive, hesitant, perhaps even anxious.
  4. ▲What Drawlight had been hoping for wasn't as lewd as one might assume — much worse, it was sentimental! He'd been imagining Childermass wrapping his wings around him protectively, but unfortunately Childermass wasn't very accustomed to these astral appendages and had decided to simply ignore them instead.
  5. ▲A French widow.




End file.
